Of all the products associated with the material wealth and cultural splendor of traditional Chinese civilization, none was so quintessentially Chinese as silk. From the most ancient times silk played a role in Chinese history, both as a symbol of imperial tradition and as a mainstay of the peasant economy.

This monumental work provides a new perspective on the historical significance of famines in China over the past three hundred years. It examines the relationship between the interventionist state policies of the eighteenth-century Qing emperors ("the golden age of famine relief"), the environmental and political crises of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (when China was called "the Land of Famine"), and the ambitions of the Mao era (which tragically led to the greatest famine in human history). In addition to a wide array of documentary sources, the book employs quantitative...